BY EDWARD NICHOLSON, SR., LONDON, CIRCA 1685

Details

A Flintlock Blunderbuss-Pistol
By Edward Nicholson, Sr., London, circa 1685
With belled two-stage brass barrel engraved with strawberry foliage at the muzzle and breech (some wear), the latter octagonal then polygonal, iron tang, signed rounded lock with traces of strawberry leaf engraving (surface pitting), moulded artificially figured full stock with raised apron at the barrel tang (section of fore-end replaced, cracked opposite the lock), brass mounts engraved with further strawberry foliage, engraved pierced side-plate, single baluster ramrod-pipe, and brass-capped ramrod, London proof marks
14¾in. (37.5cm.)

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

Edward Nicholson, Sr. was apprenticed to Robert Silke, free of the Gunmakers' Company in 1675, and Master in 1697. He was contractor to Ordnance from 1680 to 1711, to the East India Company in 1700, and to the Hudson's Bay Company from 1687 to 1712

Cf. a similar pistol by Nicholson formerly in the W.G. Renwick Collection, sold by Sotheby & Co., London, 12 November 1973, lot 71

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